'I feel like I let my team down': Rowdy Tellez speaks about his fractured left ring finger

The physical pain has mostly subsided.

But Rowdy Tellez is still sore.

Sore about the circumstances surrounding the injury he suffered to his left ring finger a little over a week ago in Cincinnati, one that will ultimately leave him on the injured list several weeks longer than anyone had originally anticipated.

"It is frustrating," Tellez said Sunday morning in his first public comments since the incident. "Especially knowing it was kind of a freak injury."

Tellez was three days away from returning to the Milwaukee Brewers lineup, his sore forearm basically healed up, when he somehow got his finger caught in the outfield wall at Great American Ball Park while shagging fly balls before a game.

The result? A tuft fracture in the tip of his finger, and 17 stitches -- 10 to reattach the nail bed, and seven more to reattach the skin around his nail.

"I never shag fly balls, and the one time I do I put my hand up against the fence, missed the fence and caught my fingernail and ripped it off," Tellez said. "It kind of stinks. It’s kind of embarrassing, because I feel like I let my team down. Especially having a fully healthy year last year and having a good year to now having to deal with injuries and playing through them and not being able to handle it.

"I was out there just power shagging and sweating and trying to do something. Chain-link fence, and it got stuck in it. Immediately I felt it. Went running in and had surgery that night. Came back right as the game was ending. Able to close my hand pretty much now."

Adding insult to injury – quite literally – was the fact Tellez was set to meet up with Class AAA Nashville two days later for a one-game rehab stint at Louisville and then meet the Brewers in Philadelphia for their series against the Phillies.

Instead, Tellez remains on the shelf for the foreseeable future.

He will have the stitches removed on Tuesday, be fitted for a brace and is hopeful to begin swinging a bat on Wednesday.

"The first five days, it was pretty painful," Tellez said. "It’s not so much the stitches as the fracture. I’m off pain medication and just kind of rolling with it.

"It’s just how much pain can I handle."

Tellez said he's eyeing a full return to action in the middle of the Brewers' nine-game road trip next month, meaning it would come around Aug. 15 against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I need to get back as soon as I can and help them out," he said.

The Brewers have been utilizing Owen Miller as the primary first baseman in Tellez's absence, with Victor Caratini joining the mix recently as well. There's also the possibility the Brewers could add a player there via a trade, with the deadline looming on Aug. 1.

Tellez is hitting .213 with 11 home runs and 36 runs batted in with an OPS of .672 over 79 games, a marked downturn from the .219/35/89/.767 line he posted in 153 games in 2022.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Broken finger troubles Milwaukee Brewers' Rowdy Tellez